Speaking of Danny Sullivan, he wrote a good piece on Android’s “just buy a new device” software updates, calling it more “clopen” than open:

A big reason behind this mess is that Google doesn’t actually
sell the Android operating system to consumers. If it did, it
would probably care more about ensuring customers (because
that’s what they would be) were covered from start to finish.

The Android 4 page from Google touts all the advantages that
the new operating system offers. The page is written for
consumers. But nothing on it explains how consumers can actually
get the operating system.

It isn’t just that Google doesn’t sell the Android operating system to
consumers. It is that the consumer is Google’s product. Android is a
delivery system to serve the consumer to Google’s target market — the
advertisers. So Google’s customer for Android is not the consumer (with the arguable exception of the Nexus phones), but rather the carriers.